So as I promised, here's Magnus' upbringing. Sorry for the short, very late chapter. Midterms are kicking my ass.
Thank you all so much for 10K! I'm honestly in awe of you, I have the best readers ever. Please enjoy this chapter, vote, and comment!
***
(Magnus POV)
Moonlight filters through the partially shattered glass. It gives the eerie, pale light a haphazard, ominous feel. As if the entire night sky has just splintered into a million pieces in front of me.
I don't ask what happened to the last child the Rodriguez's fostered. I think it's best if I don't know.
This house will mark the 2nd this year. 7th over all. This family will be yet another notch on my proverbial bed post. I don't expect to stay long, whether that's their choice or my own, but this place, like all the others before, doesn't feel like a home. I don't really know what a home should feel like, but I assume I'll know once I get there. Someday.
Mr. Rodriguez comes into the room behind me, footsteps neither soft nor heavy, just loud enough to sound his entrance.
"How are you settling in?" He asks in a deep tenor, urging me to turn around.
His eyes land on my untouched bag of belongings- a mixture of clothes and small items I've managed to keep throughout the many moves.
"Good," I reply simply. After the third home, I lost the motivation to play nice. To pretend like this is going to work out.
"You haven't touched your things," He points out, nodding at the bag. I shrug, staring down at my socks that are seconds away from falling to pieces, tucked beneath a pair of pretty messy blue jeans, all frayed at the bottoms. "You're not settling at all, Magnus." He scolds and I swallow thickly, hating that undertone in his voice. It's a mixture of anger, disappointment, and warning that I've come to know too well.
"I'm sorry," it's a knee jerk reaction, I know this, something I say too often to be normal, something that holds no meaning anymore.
"Don't be," he sighs, passing a calloused hand over his aging face. "Just...just get some sleep." He mumbles, turning and swinging the door closed behind him.
Instead, I turn back to the fractured window, staring out and trying to decipher the sharp fissures from stars.
***
It doesn't take long.
It never does.
Mrs. Rodriguez is a small, soft spoken woman. I'm sure, if not for her husband, she'd be a lovely lady, with a surplus of children, maybe her own, maybe fostered, or adopted. She's the motherly type.
But her husband is the problem.
Mr. Rodriguez is a tough man who likes order. I learn this quickly. He has rules upon rules and consequences that are both review and new to me.
It's a Friday when it happens first.
And it's every day after.
If I fail to put the dishes away on time. If the floors don't shine. If I bought the wrong kind of soap. If I'm late coming home from school. If I go too bed too early. If I go to bed too late.
Too soon, everything I do becomes a reason to be punished.
It's by far the worst house I've lived in.
My bedroom isn't bad in size, but the floor creaks, and I'm positive it's that way purely to inform Mr. Rodriguez if I so much as shift in the night.
The blanket on top of the single mattress with popping out springs is made of rough, itchy material that leaves my skin dry and bumpy. I refuse to use the pillow.
And then there's the shattered window and it's scattered night sky.
Normally, I don't count how long I'm in a home for. But this time, I count each day as if I won't see the next.
It's three weeks before my 18th birthday that I decide to leave.
I take the rickety lamp off of the stained end table and throw it though the already spidered window, the shards spraying in every direction, the sound obnoxious and daring.
I hear Mr. Rodriguez instantly, his footfalls getting louder as he makes his way to the bedroom.
I've jammed the door with the splintering wooden desk chair to buy me some time. When the first slam on the door happens, I toss my backpack outside and follow suite, feeling the rain instantly soaking me, washing away the blood of the new cuts adorning my skin from the shards of glass.
Throwing my bag over my shoulder, I run.
I don't know how long I go, or how far I go, either. Soon enough, all the roads in Brooklyn look the same, dampened by the evening rain and glistening in neon lights.
When Mr. Rodriguez's voice finally fades away from my mind, enough that I can truly focus, I duck into an ally and gasp for breath.
My small backpack digs into my back as I slump against the dingy, stained wall, sucking in dirty breaths and cautiously looking around me.
I have barely 50 dollars on me, not enough to get a hotel room, not that I could anyway, not enough to do much of anything with.
So I bury myself beneath my fraying jacket in the corner of the alley, bruises and cuts aching, and wonder if I'll be alive the next morning.
***
Days pass like years. Centuries even. And the Rodriguez's don't look for me. I see no posters with my name plastered on them, and they wouldn't have had a picture to put on them anyway. They'll claim me as another failed child of the system, another off-hand mishap that they'll sweep beneath the rug to make everything appear clean when it's the dirtiest, darkest system around.
My 18th birthday passes with the first snowfall that chills my bones and makes me question if I'll make it through this bitter, cold, Brooklyn winter.
I figure I'll press whatever luck I have left as I enter the dingy convenient store on the corner, shivering from the cold. The man behind the counter is maybe in his late 20's, scruff on his chin and a perpetually bored expression.
"Can I get a lottery ticket please?" He shrugs, not bothering to ask for my ID and rings me up. I pay with the last 10 dollars I have and head back into the cold, memorizing the numbers I chose on the small ticket and praying for a miracle.
***
If there is a God, I wouldn't say he's good. But 3 days later, with an empty stomach and a pain in my head that just won't go away, I win. I win the lottery, in the most literal sense, and begin to think that maybe, He isn't such a terrible guy.
I'm sitting in a diner, attempting to fend off the whipping wind outside and sipping a hot chocolate that a kind waitress bought me, staring intently at the television screen in the corner, slightly wrinkled ticket clenched tightly in between my shaking fingers.
When the numbers flash on the screen, I almost can't comprehend what's happening. It's been a month since I've become homeless, and I'm probably a few days from death, and the unthinkable happens. My clumsily chosen numbers are up on the screen.
I don't know what to do next, but I stand up, nearly knocking the table over, a look of bewilderment on my dirty face and a smile that feels unnatural.
For the first time in my life, I'm in control, and I'm okay. I might just be okay.
***
Staring in the mirror, I run a hand through my freshly cut hair before fixing the collar on my suit jacket and smoothing it down. The charcoal, texturing colour demands respect, the shine of my shoes reflecting from the bright lights in my bedroom.
The place is bare, for now, but absolutely huge. I managed to swing a good deal for the place, since it's a bit older and in the middle of downtown Brooklyn, and it barely made a dent in my winnings from about 2 years ago.
The meeting with my investors is in an hour, and if all goes well, by the time it's over, I'll be starting my own business.
Over the past 2 years, I pushed through some online courses in architecture, managing to get my bachelors in two years with a lot of hard work and dedication. Without having to work, it made it a lot easier.
I've always enjoyed arts, always liked creating things that were better than the life I was living. I'd done thousands of sketches over the years and foster homes, but none of them came with me.
Now, I might have the chance to make those sketches concrete, make something out of all the messy thoughts inside my head.
Heading out into the street, I hail a taxi, sliding inside and starting off towards the beginning of my life.